Blink and you miss it

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That refers to the week.  This one has flown by in a flurry.  Crystal went to the Banff Mountain Film Festival on Monday and I did on Tuesday.  This has become or model for this event - men go one night, women the other.  It makes the childcare arrangements simple.  The Film Festival is our annual goggle-fest.  There are about 10 films shown normally covering skiing, biking, climbing, paddling and over loosely mountain related pursuits.  It's really good and inspires dreaming if nothing else.  In fact last year it featured a guy who spent his 35th birthday climbing 35 routes in a day.  I racked my brain to come up with a suitably related challenge that could take place on or around Feb 8th every year and settled on what was last year a 36km cross country ski.  We came up a few k short last year but I'm already planning to repeat (+1k) this year.  I have decided that if I am still doing this in my 70s I will split it across two days of the weekend.  No doubt, if I am living in Ottawa, global warming will have morphed this into a run.

Daddy daycare has been quiet.  The more time we spend at home the more I feel that the kids are happy here.  Felicity went to her "preschool" on Monday with friend Cedar and seems to love that, coming home wired and exhausted but full of brainergy.  But the collective stress of getting them both dressed in this weather and out the door seems to make them both grouchy when we go out together and we are limited in where we can go without the car.  Standing at the bus stop when it's -20C is not a great option.  Moreover, they are playing increasingly well together and Felicity's imagination is on fire.  She will relate a picnic outing to the beach for an entire hour and rarely seems to be short of ideas.  Besides, if we went out too much we would miss the tree trimming man and his go-go-gadget arm truck.

I make it sound like we never leave the house.  In fact we rarely don't leave the house for something or other.  On Wednesday Crystal was home ill so I took Felicity swimming while Toby napped which was great because I don't often get to do something 1:1 with her.  Tuesday we all went to the library and today we did some groceries.


When the sun is shining, low as it is at this time of year and reflecting off the snow, the house is really bright, the sunroom is warm and it almost feels like being in a cabin.  Quite lovely.


Felicity has taken Toby's shirt shoulder off so that she can give him a flu shot.  She will also take his blood pressure, listen to his chest and check for puppies in his ears.  Marvellous.


Tonight I am off out for my weekly turn flooding the rink.  It's enjoyable but a late night.  Oh so old and grumpy.  News flash!  Flooding may be called off due to snow.  In the UK being a grumpy old man is a badge of honour, something of a recognised life phase and not something to be apologised for and changed.  Here, in North America, it is deemed to be negativity and you have to go see the shrink.

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